SDCC 10: Mass Effect: The Origin of the Illusive Man

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It's the prequel story fans have been dying to see.

By Richard George

Two games, several DLC packs, dozens upon dozens of hours, countless planets, and however many alien deaths later, there is still one question on the minds of many Mass Effect fans - who is the Illusive Man?

Starting January 2011, Dark Horse plans to address that question in a new four-issue mini-series reuniting the Mass Effect: Redemption team of Mac Walters, John Jackson Miller and Omar Francia. Joining the team will be former Y: The Last Man cover artist Massimo Carnevale. IGN had a chance to grab a few first details from writers Mac Walters and John Jackson Miller.

"The basic idea was that the Illusive Man is, by nature, one of these guys we don't know much about," Walters, the writer of the Mass Effect games, told IGN in an interview. "Going forward in the games we were thinking we didn't want to reveal too much about him [in the present], but we could look into his past and see how he became the Illusive Man and, maybe moreso, where Cerebus came from and how it started. We certainly have a lot of material we've developed internally about this that's not out there publicly and we thought this would be a great forum to share that."

"Evolution is a story from the early days of the Mass Effect universe, not long after the discovery of the Mass Relays connecting our solar system to the galaxy," Miller revealed to IGN. "It shows us one of those important moments when humanity realized just how dangerous that galaxy was. Yes, there's wonderful opportunity out there, but there are also perils; as our story opens, we're in the middle of the First Contact War with the alien turians. We don't know much about the enemy, and they don't know much about us — and, as we'll find out, there's a lot more at risk than losing a starship or a colony."

"One of the questions we asked ourselves when developing the Illusive Man for the game was who was this guy and how did he get here," Walters said, when asked to detail why Bioware chose to focus in on the Illusive Man. "How does someone come to have this much power and view this world the way he does? And really there's no way to explore that in the game otherwise he wouldn't be illusive! So the opportunity to explore him [made sense to us]."

But who is the star of this series? Who is the Illusive Man? We asked Miller for his sense of the character. "I look at the Illusive Man as a searcher, someone plumbing the mysteries of the galaxy — but with a specific mindset to his approach," Miller told us. "He's sure there's a darker side to some of the great things humanity's discovered, and he's rushing to find what that is before it's too late. His adventures force him to be a jack-of-all-trades — part xenobiologist, part intelligence agent, part archaeologist.

"As to how he changes — and is changed — over the course of the series, well, that's a big part of the story. Let's just say it's impossible to come into such close contact with the mysteries of the universe without being changed by them..."

By no means will Mass Effect: Evolution answer all questions and leave no stones unturned. Miller noted that while the story is in the past and definitely a prequel, there are a number of years between Evolution and the game trilogy. But, Miller added, he was sure fans would get a "good sense" of this mysterious puppet master. And who knows, if fans respond as well to this mini-series as they did for Redemption, we could see more on the Illusive Man. "It's always possible that some of the things we learn in the series may be reflected down the road... there are certainly more story opportunities out there," said Miller.